


The Aftereffects

by pearlsongrey



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Like extreme Slow Burn, Slow Burn, be aware, but basically:, just a warning, other characters to be added - Freeform, they don't even meet until like the third chapter, zombie girlfriends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-10-19 01:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10629120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlsongrey/pseuds/pearlsongrey
Summary: Clarke Griffin wakes up in a morgue in the middle of the night. 5 miles away, Lexa Woods wakes up in a train station. Somehow, even through a zombie apocalypse and way too much teen angst, they manage to find each other. Warning: slow burn. Like... extreme slow burn. Like... they don't even meet until the third chapter kinda slow burn. But, if that's what you're into, stick around because there'll also be zombie girlfriends kicking ass.





	1. Chapter One

               Her memory of the night before came in flashes, like fast-forwarding through a TV show at high speed. Clarke remembered a puddle forming in a jagged pothole on the side of the road. The damp mist of rain; headlights and street lamps and building signs reflected in an otherworldly 3-am glow on the wet pavement. She remembered footsteps, voices, laughter, the ridiculously glittery skirt that Anya had decided to wear. Her feet hitting the pavement so hard her knees hurt, the strobing neon lights of a club- or was it a bar? It didn’t seem to matter, really. Because it stopped there. That was all she remembered: an aggregate montage of voices and rain and washed-out colors.

 

               If the circumstances had been different, she would have written the missing memories off as drinking a little too much, and resolved to never let Anya coerce her into using a fake ID again. The circumstances, however, were far from normal. When she woke, the fragmented memories came rushing back at her, along with a blinding headache pulsing behind her eyelids. This, she expected. What she didn’t expect was to wake up on a metal table covered in nothing but a thin, white sheet.

 

               It took a moment or two after waking for Clarke to realize the confusing change in surroundings. She opened her eyes groggily, noting the uncomfortably hard and cold surface beneath her. _Shit._ How much did she have to drink? Directly above her head were a set of rectangular fluorescent ceiling lights, unlit but reflecting some kind of glow from another part of the room. Clarke pushed herself up onto her elbows unsteadily, palm clutching the surface underneath her as her head seemed to think better of the movement, and the room rolled dangerously. She closed her eyes tightly, willing the spinning in her head and the rolling in her stomach to go away.

 

               When she opened her eyes again, the room seemed much more solid and steady. She swung her feet off of the table and slid to the floor, wrapping the sheet self-consciously around herself. _What the hell?_ Her first, or second, or maybe fifteenth thought- the only one that seemed to make any kind of sense- was that she was in a hospital. That made sense, surely, except that she didn’t know what kind of hospital set their patients up in rooms that looked like a morgue. _A morgue._ Her stomach flipped a little with that thought, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with the inordinate amount she’d been drinking the night before.

 

               The room didn’t quite look the kind of morgues she saw on all those crimes shows that Wells watched, but there was a row of doors along the wall next to her that looked suspiciously like the kind one might store dead bodies in. It was a joke, or a trick. Some kind of asshole senior prank that Anya and Wells had come up with. Clarke squeezed her eyes shut again, partly to try and keep her stomach steady and partly to try and remember what had happened last night. She racked her brain, but the only thing she could remember was the feeling of rain on her skin, and bright lights shining in her eyes. Her headache spiked when she continued to probe around her memories, and she pressed her palms against her eyelids almost as a reflex.

 

               She made her way around the room, panic settling into determination in the pit of her stomach. The feeling was similar to the time when she’d gotten lost in an L.L. Bean for over half an hour. She’d been five at the time, sure, but the feelings of uneasiness and desperation seemed to draw those memories right to the forefront of her mind. Clarke scanned over empty countertops and mirrors blankly. She’d crawled into one of the tents, and her mom had been right there. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the next thing she knew, she was awake, and her mom was gone.

 

               A flash of red peeking out of one of the cabinets drew Clarke out of her memories. She padded over to the cabinet and tugged the door open, grabbing the plastic bag that had caught her eye. In it, folded messily, were a red sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and Nike sneakers. They weren’t her clothes, she knew that much- the sneakers were an unpleasant shade of green. They were in a bag labeled EVIDENCE in thick red letters. Clarke shook the clothes out onto the counter.

 

               For a sickening moment, her stomach turned as she wondered if the sweatshirt was only red because it was covered in blood, but, touching the garment gingerly, she found it quite clean and dry. Eyeing the clothes, Clarke made her way around the room again, trying to take note of anything that could be important. Lights: off. Door: locked. Sink: functional, but unhelpful. Windows: probably could be opened, but a little too high to check. Doors that looked like they might contain dead bodies: uninspected. She rounded back to the pile of the clothes.

 

               This was too much, too much to think about, especially with the headache pounding behind her eyelids. If this was all Wells and Anya, she didn’t think she’d want to talk to them for another month. Or maybe a year. If it wasn’t… well, that was an even more terrifying thought. She rested her elbows on the counter, weighing her options. She could wait here until morning- whenever that was- in nothing but a sheet and with a possible wall of dead bodies right next to her. She could attempt to break down the door, still wearing nothing but a sheet. She could climb out the window, in her sheet. Mentally, Clarke crossed out all the sheet options. She turned back to the pile of clothes. Option four: she could take someone else’s clothes, climb out the window, and go home, probably breaking about 50 laws and definitely interfering with crime scene evidence. She pulled the sweatshirt over her head.

 

               The sneakers, as suspected, were about two sizes too big, but everything else was almost the right size. She’d just have to hold the pants up, she reasoned. A few minutes later, standing on her tiptoes and with the metal table shoved as close to the wall as it could go, Clarke was attempting to jimmy the window open. She hadn’t much experience with breaking in- or out, as it were- of places, and it definitely wasn’t as easy as TV made it look. She also suspected that those particular windows hadn’t been opened in a good many years.

 

               Finally, with a grunt of success, the window creaked open. A blast of wind and rain hit Clarke’s hands immediately, and she laughed a little. Of course. She was climbing out the window of a morgue in someone else’s clothes in the middle of the night in a storm. Sticking her head out the window, trying not to get rain in her eyes, she saw the drop to the ground below was at least 15 feet. Clarke pulled her head back in, taking a few deep breaths to steel herself. She climbed up on the ledge carefully, crouched in the small space between the window sill and the ceiling. The waistline of the jeans was clutched in her fist, and the hem at the ankle line was already getting soaked with rain. This night had been insane enough already. _Fuck it._ She jumped.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey! I know this chapter is short, I promise I'm working on making them longer. Also, there will be a lot more characters in the next few chapters; I'm just sort of using this one to gauge people's reactions, and as an exposition to set up the story before I dive in (as I mentioned, very slow burn and very long lol). I'm visiting my sister at college tomorrow so I might not be able to update this for a few days, but please let me know what you think/what you want to happen! I don't have a Lexa chapter written yet, but I can totally write one if you think I should!! Basically, just read and review! Thanks :)


	2. Chapter 2

          The sidewalk was ridden with puddles and the occasional tipped-over trash bin, blown into her path by the howling wind. Clarke pulled up the hood of the red sweatshirt to cover her face. It was a driving kind of rain, the kind that pelted her clothes until they were soaked through and made the world thrum with the drops hitting sidewalks and stone. 

 

          She had figured out where she was almost immediately after landing on the damp pavement outside the morgue, quickly calculating the street signs and familiar buildings to realize that she was nearly 20 blocks away from her apartment building. Bright lights catching the corner of her eye, Clarke turned to see a neon sign for a diner, open 24/7 by its proclamation. Pulling the already soaking fabric of the sweatshirt tighter around her, Clarke took off for the warmer and drier cover of the diner’s overhang.

 

          Looking through the foggy, slightly grimy, and rain-warped windows, she didn’t see anyone else in the diner. Hoping that she wouldn’t attract too much attention, and that the place was true to their 24/7 claim, Clarke took a deep breath and pulled open the door. A faint jingle, almost hidden by the sound of the storm raging outside, announced her entrance into the room, and then the door shut behind her, effectively silencing the howling rain. 

 

***

 

          Clarke picked up a few fries from the greasy paper and shoved them into her mouth, barely tasting anything as she chewed. Her eyes flickered around the room, unfocused, past empty red booths and bar stools with stuffing half-hanging out of their seats. She seemed to be the only one in the diner- apart, of course, from the surly looking man who had taken her order- but in fact she felt better because of that.

 

          Something flashed across the screen of the TV above the bar, drawing Clarke’s attention. She caught the words “breaking news” spread across the screen in large letters and bright colors, for the half-second before they disappeared. Eyes still trained on the TV screen, Clarke ate a few more fries and a bite of her sandwich. She had always loved grilled cheese, but it tasted dry and rubbery in her mouth. 

 

          On the TV, the newscaster was standing on an all-too-familiar looking street, made only somewhat less recognizable by the bright yellow police tape bucking and twisting in the wind behind her. Clarke drew her gaze up to the captioning on the top of the screen, always a few seconds behind the live action.  **...NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE HIT AND RUN THAT TOOK PLACE HERE ON FRIDAY EVENING,** Clarke read, catching the end of the woman’s sentence. There was nothing for a few more seconds, even though on the screen the newscaster continued to talk, and then words splashed hurriedly across the screen as though trying to make up for lost time, disappearing as quickly as they came. 

 

**THE VICTIM, PREVIOUSLY UNIDENTIFIED, HAS NOW BEEN IDENTIFIED AS 18 YEAR OLD CLARKE GRIFFIN,** Clarke read, and her stomach did an unexpectedly terrible kind of jolt as though she had missed a step going down the stairs.  _ 18-year-old Clarke Griffin. 18-year-old Clarke Griffin. _ Her eyes scanned the words over and over again, her mind echoing and repeating. The captioning changed again, but again Clarke was too slow and only caught the last part of the sentence: ... **RUSHED TO THE HOSPITAL WITH SEVERE INJURIES WHERE SHE WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD A FEW HOURS LATER.**

 

          A sudden and uncomfortably loud screech gave Clarke a jolt of shock until she realized that it had been her own chair, scraping against the hard linoleum floor as she stood up.  _ Dead a few hours later. _ The world spun, and she gripped onto the counter-top for support. Somehow, stupidly, nonsensically, words were still swimming in front of her vision, stark white in a sea of black.  **...ANYTHING ABOUT THE SUSPECT** , she made out with difficulty, the words partially blurring together.  **IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, PLEASE…** Clarke shoved herself away from the counter and stumbled dizzily towards the door. 

 

          The man behind the counter, suddenly alert, yelled, “Hey! You never paid!” and Clarke took off at a run. She crashed through the doors, hearing commotion behind her but somehow knowing she shouldn’t look back. It was pouring rain, turning the night sky an even darker shade of gray. Had it been raining before? She couldn’t remember; all of this seemed like a terrible nightmare that she had to wake up from. Even her socks, splashing through puddles on the sidewalk, seemed to be weighed down by the slow-motion haze always reminiscent of dreams. 

 

          Fierce drops of rain stung her face and soaked through her sweatshirt, but Clarke kept running. Finally, lungs burning, she slowed to a walk and let herself collapse against the old brick wall of an apartment building, trying to avoid the water streaming from the gutter. She didn’t know how far she’d run, but now all she could hear was rain beating down on the asphalt, and a siren wailing somewhere in the distance, and the familiar thrum of music playing a little too loudly in one of the apartments above her. In the relative silence, all of the thoughts that she had been trying to keep out of her head came rushing back in. 

 

_           Pronounced dead a few hours later. Clarke Griffin. Dead.  _ Her breathing was still coming rapidly, and before she knew what was happening something turned in her stomach. Clarke lurched forward, making it to the edge of the street before she emptied the contents of her stomach into a garbage bin on the curb. There went the grilled cheese. 

 

          She wanted to laugh, absurdly, but she was worried that if she did she might cry. So she stayed there, crumpled over the edge of the bin, gasping for breath. Drops of rain landed on her head, and she straightened up laboriously, her stomach still cramping, to glare defiantly at the sky. “I’m solid. I’m real. I’m fucking  _ alive _ ,” she told it angrily, but the only answer she got was the rain hitting her face. She  _ was _ alive, she was, but if that was true then why did she remember that street, remember Anya’s laugh, remember-

  
          Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, because after that everything was just black, until the morgue. This no longer seemed like one of Wells’ and Anya’s pranks.  _ What happened? How long was I there? I need to get home.  _ This last thought stood out stark in her mind, because she knew that if she could only get home, only find her mom, everything would be okay. Her mom would know what was going on, what to do. Disconnectedly, Clarke remembered, again, the time she’d gotten lost at the L.L Bean. She had wandered around for at least an hour, crying, until a salesperson noticed and paged her mom over the store loudspeaker. It had turned out that her mom was back in the tent section, looking for her frantically.  _ It’s like that _ , she told herself, wiping her mouth on her sweatshirt sleeve and turning away from garbage bin determinedly.  _ She’s out there, and she’ll know what to do. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, umm... sorry it's been so long! I'm warning you in advance that the updates on this story are going to be kind of slow, partly because I don't have a lot of inspiration and mostly because I only have a few chapters written so far, and want to get a little more done before I start posting regularly. Anyway, sorry about that, but if you're still reading this thank you!! Again, this is another sort of short and slow chapter but I promise a lot more will happen in the next one. I'll try to get it up sometime within the next week because I'm done with school now!! Sorry for the long author's note, please let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter Three

          The correct bus station was easy to find, once Clarke realized she was only a few blocks from the theatre that played  _ The Nutcracker _ every Christmas. It was a long wait; Clarke had no idea about the bus schedule in this part of the city. The overhang, at least, offered a respite from the rain, but Clarke was already so soaked that she had to wring out her sweatshirt three times before it stopped dripping. After almost half an hour, a bus pulled into the stop and opened it’s doors with a slow creak.

 

          The bus driver gave Clarke a blearily surprised once-over, as though he hadn’t actually expected anyone to be at the stops along this route so early in the morning. He was wondering possibly, she thought, what she was doing in a downpour in clothes that were two sizes too big and no shoes, and why she was waiting at the bus stop at the 3:39 in the morning (if the time running across the screen overhead was to be believed.) He took her money without comment, however, and she made her way to the back of the bus. Every row of seats she passed was empty, but Clarke supposed that was to be expected at 3:40 on a… what day even was it? She shook her head and pressed a hand to her temple; a headache was beginning to throb behind her eyelids again.

 

***

 

          Clarke’s socks made loud squelching noises as she got off the elevator and made her way down the hall. The building was quiet, but Clarke supposed that was to be expected at almost 4:00 in the morning. As she neared her apartment door, reaching almost instinctively into the deep sweatshirt pocket, Clarke was hit with the realization that she didn’t have her keys. Her stomach dropped for what felt like the 100th time that night. Coming home at four in the morning was bad enough, but she’d banking on the hope that somehow, she could sneak  into her room unnoticed. The prospect of having to wake her mom up, and explain everything that had happened that night, was a clear path to a whole new level of being grounded.

 

          Clarke took a few deep breaths, steeled herself, and knocked on the door. There seemed to be no movement from inside, so after a few minutes passed she raised a hand to knock again. As she was doing so, however, the door was yanked open by… her brother. Clarke let out a sigh of relief over the fact that she hadn’t woken her mom, already making plans to swear Wells to silence, sneak into her room, and change into nice, dry clothes. This was replaced almost immediately by a sense of unease, however, when she saw the horrified expression on her brother’s face. 

 

          “Wells,” Clarke said slowly. “What’s going-”

 

          Wells let out a sort of choke, and slammed the door in her face. 

 

***

 

          “What the hell?” Clarke yelled through the door, knocking loudly again. “Wells, let me in!”

 

          “I’m crazy, right?” She heard Wells’ voice from the other side of the door. “You’re a ghost, and I’m crazy.” 

 

          She was so done with this. “Listen, Wells, if this is still part of your dumb prank, you can let it up. It’s not funny anymore. Just let me in, please. I’m cold, and I’m soaking.”

 

          “What are you talking about?” Wells’ voice came shakily through the door after a moment.

 

          Clarke sighed. “It’s some prank, right? I know I was drinking a lot last night. I probably shouldn’t have been, but this is going way too far. I don’t really remember anything after that, okay. Please just open the door.” 

 

          “Last night?” Wells asked, his voice sounding a little calmer.

 

          “Yeah, when I went out with you and Anya,” Clarke replied exasperatedly.  _ Why was this so difficult? _

 

          “That was four days ago,” came Wells’ reply, his voice dull, and for a moment Clarke thought she misheard. 

 

          “What!” She spat through the door. “Wells, I swear to god, if you don’t open this door right now, I’ll-” the door swung open, a hand grabbed her arm, and Wells yanked her into the room and out of the hallway.

 

          “ _T_ _ hank you _ ,” Clarke muttered irately, rubbing her elbow and turning to glare at her brother. “Now will you please tell me what the hell-” She stopped then, because it wasn’t until she turned around to look at Wells- really look at him- that she noticed how terrible he looked. A few years older and usually several inches taller than Clarke, he seemed to have shrunk, looking thin and tired in the t-shirt and boxers that he had opened the door in. The phone was clutched in his right hand, holding onto it as though it was a lifeline. With a cursory look around the apartment, Clarke noticed the couch piled high with blankets, as though someone had been sleeping on it. 

 

          “What’s going on?” She asked again warily, turning back to Wells, who was still silhouetted in the doorway. “Where’s mom?”

 

          “She left,” Wells replied shortly, pushing past Clarke to return to the couch. “She went to New York, she said she had to see dad, that she had some stuff-”

 

          “She went to  _ dad’s _ ?” Clarke interrupted in bewilderment. “They haven’t seen each other in like-”

 

          “Seven years, I know.” Wells’ tone was still flat, face turned towards the blank screen of the TV.

 

          “Will you please explain to me what’s going on?” Clarke raised a hand to her head; pain was throbbing in her temples, and her stomach didn’t feel great either. “I don’t remember anything since Friday, and I just woke up a goddamn hospital, or a morgue, and I saw some news story about a hit and run, and now you’re telling me that mom’s gone and-”

 

          “You were dead,” Wells interrupted quietly. “You died. And we got a call from the police and we had to go identify your fucking dead body so I think that mom leaving isn’t the most confusing part of this.” His tone had stayed cold and level as he spoke, face still turned away from her, but Clarke still flinched a little when he cursed. He never did that.

 

          “I’m sorry,” Clarke said, taking a few steps towards him. “I didn’t- I have no idea- I’m sorry.” Almost before she knew what was happening, he had moved from the couch and wrapped her in a fierce hug. She felt his tears in her hair, but she was already soaked through and it didn’t seem to matter.

 

          “I’m sorry, too,” he said thickly, chin rested on her shoulder. “We’ll figure out what happened, I promise. It’ll be okay.”

 

          They stayed like that for a few moments, Clarke’s face buried in Wells’ chest, before she spoke again. “I’m a little cold,” she said, voice muffled by his t-shirt, and he pulled away and laughed, brushing tears out of his eyes. “Sorry,” Clarke said again when they were at arm's length. 

 

          “Yeah, me too.” Wells sniffed a little and ran a hand over his head. “Um… want something to eat?”

 

          Remembering the grilled cheese from a few hours ago, Clarke shook her head hurriedly. “No, I’m okay, thanks. I really just want a shower.” 

 

          “Yeah, of course,” Wells gave her a watery smile. “Take your time. I’ll call mom, okay?” Clarke nodded quickly and turned to head down the hall. “When you’re done, though, we need to talk,” Wells called after her.

 

          “Okay.” Clarke threw a small smile over her shoulder and hurried into her room, shutting the door behind her. She had no idea how she was supposed to explain this. 

 

***

 

          The hot water of the shower had warmed her up a little bit, but it seemed like a false kind of warm- a surface level feeling that didn’t really reach past her skin, into her bones, where the real cold was. It was a chill from the rain, she told herself as she towel-dried her hair, but still she was shivering uncontrollably. Clarke hung the towel on the back of the door and wiped away some of the steam from the bathroom window, looking at herself closely for the first time in what felt like hours. 

 

          Her hair hung, limp and damp, around her face, tangled from the rain and lack, so far that night, of a comb. Her face looked pale, she noted, and her lips looked a little bluer than normal- any blue, she thought, was probably bluer than normal. Shadows accentuated the heavy bags under her eyes, prominent without makeup and a possibly very messed up sleep schedule. Overall, she looked like she’d fit right in in one of those horror movies where someone rises out of a swamp. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Wells really had thought she was a ghost. 

 

          Clad in a t-shirt, sweatshirt, pajama bottoms, and slippers- probably too many clothes for the middle of August, but she was still cold- Clarke left the steam-filled bathroom for the relative chill of the hallway outside. She padded towards the living room, noticing now the glaring emptiness and darkness of her mom’s room as she passed by. 

 

          Wells was sitting on the couch, much in the same position as when she left him. The phone was still clutched in his hand, and he was still staring blankly at the TV. He started a little when she came into the room, and turned towards her. 

 

          “I tried calling,” he said, holding the phone up like proof of this statement. “She hasn’t answered yet.” 

 

          “Yeah, well, it’s like 4:30 in the morning there, too,” said Clarke, sitting tentatively on the edge of the couch, leaving a void of space between them. “Have you left a voicemail?”

 

          “Yeah, I just told her to call back. Said it was important,” Wells answered, fiddling with the edge of the blanket now. 

 

          “Nothing else?”

 

          “What am I gonna say, ‘Hey mom, just calling to let you know that Clarke isn’t actually dead so everything’s all good, please come home now’?”

 

          “Right,” Clarke said quietly. “I… I wasn’t thinking, sorry.”

 

          “It’s fine,” Wells sighed, looking up at her for the first time. “This just isn’t the kind of thing I can do over a voicemail.”

 

          “Yeah,” Clarke nodded. “Yeah, of course.” She wanted to say “sorry” again, she wanted to say it a million times over, but she’d apologized more times than she could count that night, and she wasn’t sure what good it would do. Or what she was even apologizing for. “Well, I’ll… try again in the morning.”

 

          “Mhmm.” Wells nodded his agreement without really turning to look at her. Clarke sunk slowly back into the cushions of the couch, drawing her legs up to her chest. It was never really like this between her and Wells; when they argued, it was usually over who got the last poptart, or who had to wash the dishes that night. He had never stopped talking to her like this. 

 

          “I’m gonna go to bed,” Clarke said finally, breaking the silence and standing up stiffly. 

 

          “’Kay,” said Wells, a little dully. “See you in the morning.”

 

          Halfway across the room, Clarke turned back to him. “Are you going to stay on the couch?”

 

          “Yeah,” he shrugged. “Just in case.”

 

          “Okay,” Clarke said softly, nodding. She didn’t need to ask ‘just in case’ of what; there were too many answers that he could give her. Just in cast Mom comes home, just in case anyone calls, just in case there’s something else on the news, just in case this is all a terrible dream and you really are dead. “G’night.” She turned and padded back towards her room. Behind her, there was only silence. 

 

          Clarke felt a lump in her throat, but she didn’t turn around again.  No, she didn’t care why he had said ‘just in case.’ She just wanted her brother back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I'm not totally sure if that was what people were expecting... Again, sorry that it's been so long in between updates. I'm trying to get a few chapters finished at a time before I post anything, but I might just start posting chapters as soon as I finish them. Let me know what you think, but this is going to be slow no matter how I do it just because like I said before, I'm low on motivation here lol. Also, since the updates are so slow (agh sorry) let me know if you want like a little paragraph from the last chapter to remind you of what's going on when I post a new one. I really really hope you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a comment with any questions or feedback! 
> 
> Forgot to say this before, but disclaimer: I don't own anything! Any mistakes are mine.


	4. Chapter 4

          Clarke woke the next morning feeling a little disoriented. She sat up in bed, letting her eyes adjust to the brightly lit room, and for a moment wondered why it was so light and she was so cold. The clock on her bedside table, reading 1:23, answered the first question, and the memories of the night before that came flooding back answered the second. Clarke shivered, pulling her bathrobe on. She hoped she hadn’t come down with anything the night before. Her mom had always told her, going out into the rain, put your coat on or you’ll catch cold… A feeling similar to the one she had the night before, like there was something stuck in her throat, suddenly came over Clarke, and she blinked back tears. Swallowing with difficulty, she shuffled her feet into her fuzzy blue slippers and made her way towards the kitchen. 

 

          On the couch, Wells was still sound asleep, blanket thrown over one shoulder, one leg half-hanging off the couch. Clarke let a small smile twitch at the corners of her mouth, forgetting for a moment the cold tension that had hung between them the night before. She headed towards the sink and filled a glass with water, quietly so as not to wake Wells. As she turned back towards the living room, a blinking green light on the phone caught her eye. 

 

          “Shoot.” Clarke rushed over to the phone and picked it up.  _ One new voicemail  _ flashed at the top of the screen. She pressed play and held the phone to her ear. 

 

          “Hey, Wells, sweetheart,” her mom’s voice scratched at the other end, sounding as frazzled and hurried as usual. “I’m calling you back, but I guess we keep on missing each other. I’ll try again in a few hours. I know you were worried, but I’m fine, really. I just- I need a few days. I’ll-” There was a beep, and the message ended. Clarke stood with the phone to her ear for another minute, trying to hang on the to the last echo of her mom’s words. She was halfway through moving to the MISSED CALLS screen to call her mom back, before realizing that a call from her dead daughter wasn’t exactly the most reassuring thing. 

 

          “Damn it.” Clarke placed the phone back into the receiver, a little more harshly than she had intended, and stalked into the kitchen. She still wasn’t hungry, surprisingly, but she supposed it was a result of waking up in a morgue and possibly almost being buried alive. At that, her stomach gave a sharp turn, and Clarke squeezed her eyes shut. Definitely not a good thought. 

 

          A low groan came from the living room, and she walked back in to find Wells sitting up with difficulty. 

 

          “My back hurts like hell,” he complained, and she only smiled a little bit. 

 

          “Sorry. Guess I’m not going to say ‘I told you so,’” she joked, and when he rolled his eyes it almost seemed like they were okay again. But then his gaze drifted to the phone, and Clarke’s happiness dissipated as she realized they were going to have to  _ talk _ again.

 

          “Mom called,” she said, reading his thoughts. She tossed the phone to Wells and he caught it deftly. “You should probably call back.” 

 

          She moved restlessly back towards the kitchen as he dialed, hearing only silence for a few minutes after. 

 

          “No answer,” Clarke heard from the living room finally, and she peeked her head back around the corner. “You don’t think she’s…” Wells trailed off.

 

          “What?” 

 

          “I don’t know… avoiding?”

 

          “No. That’s ridiculous. You probably just missed her again,” Clarke said shortly, rounding the corner again towards the kitchen. “Breakfast?”

 

          Wells dropped the blanket onto the couch with a sigh and followed her. “Look, I know you don’t want to think about it, but this must be hard for her. It’s hard for  _ me _ , and you’re standing right here. Maybe she just… doesn’t know what to say, you know?”

 

          “She always knows what to say,” Clarke replied angrily. He was right; she didn’t want to think about that fact that their mom was avoiding this, was avoiding her, was avoiding this whole situation, because she never did that. Abby Griffin faced problems head on, and if she wasn’t doing that, then… Clarke didn’t know what she was doing.

 

          She pulled some pans out of a cabinet, banging them down a little harder than probably necessary on the counter, just to feel like she was being useful. “Do you want eggs?”

 

          “What?” Wells ran a hand over his head absentmindedly. “Yeah, sure, whatever you’re having.”

 

          “Not hungry,” Clarke replied shortly. 

 

          “You should eat something,” Wells pressed, but Clarke ignored him, continuing to stomp and bang around the kitchen. “Look, Clarke, I’ll just have cereal.” He grabbed her arm as she reached for the butter, continuing to ignore him. “Clarke, seriously, stop!” 

 

          She turned to face him, feeling the familiar lump in her throat. “Mom would have made eggs,” she said thickly, her voice breaking a little. 

 

          He pulled her into a hug again, and she didn’t resist even though she wanted to. She had broke down more times than she could count in the past 24 hours, and she wanted to be strong. But standing there, face buried in comforting smell of the detergent that smelled like home, she didn’t want to pull away just yet. Finally, she extricated herself from the hug, and wiped away the few tears that were threatening to blur her vision. 

 

          “Sorry,” Clarke choked out. “I’m fine.”

 

          “You don’t have to be,” Wells said softly. “It’s okay if you’re not. Trust me, I know. This whole thing is so.. Fucking insane. So, you don’t have to be okay.”

 

          “What are we supposed to do?” Clarke breathed out, barely above a whisper, because she didn’t want to let the tremble of her voice be heard. “She’s not here, she’s not answering her phone, she’s-”

 

          “We can go there,” Wells interrupted suddenly, his voice much stronger than hers. “We can get a plane ticket, or a train, or whatever, and, you know… go see her.”

 

          “What, just show up on Dad’s doorstep?” Clarke snorted out sarcastically. She knew she was lashing out, but somehow couldn’t stop herself. The past day and a half had seemed a week long, and she was the kind of tired that rested deep in your bones and didn’t leave.

 

          “It’s better than just sitting and waiting,” Wells said patiently, seeming unperturbed by her tone.

 

          Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew he was right, but continued half-heartedly to argue.  _ What if she didn’t want to see her mom? What if her mom didn’t want to see her? _ “We don’t even have any money,” she said finally, sounding like a petulant child even to her own ears.

 

          “Oh no?” Wells questioned, padding across the kitchen and pulled open one of the drawers. He rummaged around for a minute, and then pulled out something small and rectangular. The tiny, silvery numbers on the side of the card shone in the kitchen light. “For emergencies,” he said. “Remember?”

 

          “Yeah,” Clarke nodded. “I guess this seems like an emergency.”

 

***

          She hadn’t really known what to pack, and an hour later, standing on the damp concrete steps outside her building, she felt sorely unprepared. A change of clothes, a water bottle, a granola bar, a toothbrush, and $57 in cash (last week’s salary, minus a movie ticket fare). 

 

          It took nearly 10 minutes to hail a cab; traffic was rushing by as though the two teenagers on the sidewalk were invisible, and it wasn’t even the height of rush hour. Finally, a yellow car screeched to a halt outside their building. They wasted no time clambering into the backseat. 

 

          “Thanks,” said Wells, pushing his backpack in in front of him. 

 

          “Where to?” The driver asked, flicking on his turn signal to pull out into traffic.

 

          “Union Station,” Clarke said, but the driver shook his head immediately. 

 

          “Sorry,” he said. “No can do.”

 

          “What do you mean?” Clarke asked, already annoyed that it had taken them this long just to flag down a cab.

 

          The driver eyed them in the rearview mirror for a minute, snapping his gum loudly, before replying. “No trains have left from Union since last night. They’re saying it’s a strike, or somethin’.” He gestured vaguely to the radio at the front of the cab, where Clarke could hear the faint crackle of a man’s voice. 

 

          “What about other stations?” She asked, but the man shook his head. 

 

          “Shut down across the grid,” he said.

 

          “Airports?” Clarke tried, but she was met with another head shake.

 

          “Nope,” the man said unhelpfully. “Them, too.”

 

          “Right. Okay. Um, thank you.” Clarke grabbed Wells’ arm and nearly dragged him out of the cab.

 

          “Clarke,” he hissed once they were out on the street and the cab was pulling away in a cloud of exhaust. “Did you actually believe him?”

 

          “No, but it didn’t look like he was going to take us anywhere, anyway.” she replied shortly, running a hand through her hair. She turned towards Wells. “What if he  _ was _ right?”

 

          But Wells was already squinting at something on his phone screen. He nodded once, as though in confirmation, and looked up. “He was right,” he said, passing the phone to Clarke. At the top of the page, in large, bold font, she read the headline, ‘ **UNEXPECTED TRANSPORTATION STRIKE BRINGS D.C. TO A HALT** .’ Below, and in a smaller font, a sub-headline read, ‘ **Govt. officials state that shutdowns are “out of their hands”** .’

 

          “Damn it.” Clarke handed the phone back to Wells. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

          He was quiet for a moment, and then said, “We could talk to Lincoln.” Clarke looked at him skeptically, but he pushed on. “I mean, I know DCPD doesn’t have a lot of sway in the airports or anything, but he must know what’s going on.” 

 

          Clarke hesitated. She thought of the junior detective; he was brusque, businesslike, sometimes a little harsh, but Wells was right. He was a family friend, and if anyone could figure out what the hell was going on, it was him. She nodded finally. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

 

***

          They were about a block from the police station when it happened. They took a shortcut down an alley, an idea Clarke wasn’t particularly fond of, but Wells had assured her that if they continued down M Street it would take an extra 20 minutes. Clarke acquiesced, but mainly because of the anxiety coiling ever-tighter in the pit of her stomach, as well as the way the air seemed to buzz with the electricity of something that was just… off. She wanted to get to the police station as quickly as possible. So she followed Wells, grumbling the whole way. 

 

          They had just turned a corner when something caught the hood of her sweatshirt, and Clarke was yanked backwards through the air. Everything went black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... cliffhanger??? I promise I'm trying (and will continue to try) to update more frequently, I just always have a little of writer's block. Please let me know how you think this is going, reviews are always appreciated! On that topic, thank you so much to william0102 and AussieSass, I've really loved your comments so far!!! Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter and please give me any feedback you have! 
> 
> (Also, the next chapter WILL finally be when Lexa actually comes into the story lol sorry it's taken this long)
> 
> Like always, I don't own anything and all mistakes are mine. Hmu on tumblr @lesbuffy if you got any questions or want to talk!!


	5. Chapter 5

      Her head had slammed into the brick wall of the alley, and her vision had whited out in pain for a second. 

 

      “Clarke?” She heard Wells yell. “Shit! Clarke!” Strong hands grabbed her arms, and Clarke opened her eyes, still streaming with tears, expecting to see Wells. Instead, she found herself inches away from a snarling, bloodstained, and unfamiliar face. With a shriek, Clarke flailed her arms and kicked wildly, propelling herself backwards a few inches and dislodging the person on top of her. The girl (it was just a girl, a little girl, Clarke realized) gave an inhuman sort of snarl and latched on to Clarke’s arm again, jagged fingernails digging into her skin. Then, there was a thud, and the hand was gone, and Wells appeared over her holding a baseball bat. 

 

      He was raising the bat for another swing when a voice from the other end of the alley yelled, “Hey! Stop!” 

 

      In the second it took Wells to drop the bat and turn to look for the source of the yell, the girl had found her footing again and was rushing towards him. 

 

      “Wells!” Clarke yelled, but he was already spinning around, bat whistling through the air. It connected soundly with the side of the girl’s head, and she crumpled to the ground. Clarke watched for a few seconds, but the girl didn’t move.

 

      “Are you kidding me?” The same sharp tone reverberated off the walls, and Clarke turned to see a tall girl striding angrily towards them. Her stomach gave a terrified sort of jolt as she realized the girl had a gun clutched in her left hand. 

 

      “Are you deaf, or do you just not know the meaning of ‘stop’?” The girl spat, raising the gun threateningly as she drew nearer to them.

 

      “Hey!” Clarke said fiercely, ignoring the pain in her head and scrambling to her feet. “Why the hell are you pointing that at him? Did you not  _ see _ what just happened?”

 

      “Clarke, shut up, she has a frickin’ gun,” Wells hissed plaintively. He let the bat clatter to the ground as he raised both hands in a sort of surrender. 

 

      “Yeah, I saw what happened,” the girl snapped, gun still trained on Wells. “I saw you attack… shit.” Her eyes had fallen on the girl’s body, a few feet behind Wells, and the gun dropped to her side as she moved forward. Clarke jumped quickly out of her way, but she was heading for the little girl, and dropped to her knees beside the body. “Shit,” she said again, a little more softly this time.

 

      “Do you know her?” Clarke asked cautiously.

 

      “She’s my friend’s little sister,” the girl replied thickly, not taking her eyes off the body. “Her name’s Julie.” She lifted up the girl’s eyelids, one by one, and seemed to confirm something as her dropped into her hands. “Damn it. I think she’s gone.”

 

      “What!” Wells yelped beside Clarke. “I swear, I didn’t hit her hard enough to kill her!”

 

      The girl let out a humorless laugh. “I didn’t say dead. That would be ironic, though.” She seemed to mutter the last part to herself, before turning to face them. “She’s… you know, gone. Like, not coming back.” Clarke and Wells just stared at her. The girl rolled her eyes. “Not human anymore,” she emphasized loudly, as though they were hard of hearing. 

 

      “Oh,” Clarke said dumbly after a moment. “Right. Um. How do you know?”

 

      “Some of her hair’s fallen out,” the girl gestured. “And her eyes are completely cloudy, see?” Clarke was just crouching down, categorizing the details of things that were slightly off about the little girl’s body, when she felt a hand brush her hair aside. She jumped up and spun around, to find the girl backing away with her hands up in a sort of surrender. 

 

      “Sorry,” the girl said, sounding much calmer than she had before. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just… your neck.”

 

      “What?” Clarke clapped a hand to the back of her neck. “What’s on my neck?”

 

      “You have a tattoo,” Wells spoke up from behind the girl. “I didn’t know you had that.”

 

      “What are you talking about? I don’t have a tattoo!” Clarke spat out, feeling as though there were some inside joke that everyone but her knew. 

 

      “It’s on the back of your neck,” Wells said, moving closer and pushing her hair back. “It’s like… a barcode thing.”

 

      “What the hell?” Clarke jerked away from him, rubbing at her neck. 

 

      “It’s ok,” the girl spoke up finally, moving towards them from where she’d been standing a few feet away. “I have one too. Look.”

 

      She pulled her long french braid over her shoulder, and Clarke made out a series of black lines and numbers. Wells was right; it looked just like a barcode. 

 

      “What’s going on?” Clarke asked shakily, and the girl’s eyes narrowed in confusion. 

 

      “You mean… you don’t know?” she asked, sounding genuinely confused.

 

      “Know what?” Clarke said, becoming more annoyed with the girl’s cryptic attitude by the second. 

 

      The girl paused for a moment, as though surveying Clarke. Finally, she spoke. “Look, I’m sorry. We got off on the wrong foot.” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Lexa. 

 

      Clarke eyed the proffered hand skeptically, but said, “I’m Clarke,” and shook it. 

 

      Wells introduced himself shortly as well, but didn’t shake Lexa’s hand, and in fact seemed to be standing a bit farther than necessary from Clarke and Lexa, holding the baseball bat tightly again. 

 

      Lexa pocketed the gun and headed down the alley in the opposite direction, but stopped after a few steps when Clarke and Wells didn’t follow. “Are you coming?” She asked, turning back to them.

 

      “Uh… coming where?” Wells asked. 

 

      “You’ll see,” Lexa said, keeping up the annoyingly mysterious facade. 

 

      “Are you just going to leave her here?” Clarke asked, gesturing to the little girl. She was, at a second glance, Clarke noticed, no more than six or seven. 

 

      “I told you,” Lexa said. “She’s gone. There’s nothing else we can do now.”

 

      “Right,” said Clarke slowly, sharing raised eyebrows with Wells. This girl was weird bordering on crazy, and possibly a little dangerous. “Why did you say it would be ironic if she was dead?” Clarke asked, and Lexa just stared at her for a moment.

 

      “You’re serious,” she said finally, her face breaking into a wide and rather disconcerting grin.

 

      “Yeah, I’m serious,” said Clarke, exasperated, and Lexa began to laugh. “What-” Clarke started, but Lexa was laughing so hard that she was doubled over now. Clarke stared at her.  _ Yeah, definitely insane. _

 

      “Sorry,” Lexa gasped after a minute, straightening up and letting a last couple of laughs escape her. “Wow.” She brushed some tears out of the corner of her eye with her thumb. “It’s just… dude.” Her face rearranged itself into a bit of a more serious expression. “She was already dead.”

 

***

 

      “What.” Clarke stared at Lexa. It wasn’t even a question, just more of a ‘what-are-you-talking-about-maybe-I-misheard-you-please-explain-right-now’ kind of statement. 

 

      “You seriously don’t know what I’m talking about?” Lexa asked, raising her eyebrows. 

 

      “Yeah, I told you, we  _ seriously  _ have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” Clarke snapped, annoyance and impatience weaving their way into her words.

 

      “But you have the numbers, and I just thought… ugh.” Lexa frowned. “Okay, just come with me,” she said again. Clarke opened her mouth to argue again, but Lexa cut her off. “I’ll explain everything. Please?” 

 

      Clarke closed her mouth, thinking of how many times she would have wanted to hear those words over the past few days. She looked at Wells, who shrugged. Clarke held out a hand. Regarding it for a moment, Wells nodded and took her hand, encompassing it with his larger one.  _ What did they have to lose? _ “Okay,” Clarke said. “Where are we going?”

 

      Lexa turned away from them briskly, heading back down the alleyway with purpose. “You’ll see,” she said over her shoulder, and Clarke thought that she could stand to sound a little less vague about everything. 

 

      As they walked, Clarke saw Wells still twisting the baseball bat nervously in his hands.

 

      “Where did you get that?” She whispered, gesturing towards the baseball bat.

 

      “Pulled it out of someone’s trash can,” he replied, laughing a little shakily.

 

      “Oh. Right. Well, thanks for that, back there. You know, saving my life and everything.” Clarke tried to joke, but she knew that the whole situation had upset them both more than they were letting on. 

 

      Wells played along though, nudging her shoulder with a grin. “Anytime,” he said easily.

 

      In front of them, Lexa came to an abrupt stop, and Clarke had to make an effort not to crash into the other girl. They had reached the end of the alleyway, facing a rusted black door that looked like it led into some supply room, and Lexa jimmied the handle a little until the door creaked open. Behind were a set of damp concrete stairs, disappearing into darkness. 

 

      “Okay,” Clarke took a step back, folding her arms incredulously. “No way am I going down there. How do you I know you’re not, like, an axe murderer. Or aren’t just going to rob us and leave us in some hole?”

 

      Lexa let out a choke of laughter. “No offense, but you two don’t really look like you have that much to steal.”

 

      Clarke narrowed her eyes and let out a huff. “We left in a hurry, okay?”

 

      Lexa just laughed. “Look, you can trust me. I promise. I’ll even turn on the light.” She flipped a switch just inside the doorway, and the stairwell was illuminated with the thin, yellow flicker of a fluorescent bulb long past its prime. “They cut the power at night, but it’s usually on until 6 at least.” Clarke and Wells didn’t respond, just continued to look at her. Lexa sighed. “Fine! I’ll go first.” She stepped into the stairwell and Clarke caught the door as she let go. About five steps down, she turned back to look at them. “Coming?” Clarke eyed Wells, and he took a tentative step into the stairwell. She followed him. 

 

      “And I’m not an axe murderer,” the girl called over her shoulder. 

 

      Clarke eyed her suspiciously. “That’s exactly what an axe murderer would say,” she muttered under her breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey here's another chapter! I hope you liked this, I hope Lexa's introduction was satisfying, I hope everyone wasn't too OOC, I promise questions will be answered soon haha (if you haven't basically figured everything out already). I'm leaving for college tomorrow (WTH!!??) so I'm not sure if I'll be able to write for a week or two. But, again, I will def try to keep updating semi-regularly. Please read and review, and let me know what I should change/add in the upcoming chapters! Also just a heads up, this is obviously a first draft so I might be going back and changing little things in the first few chapters, but I'll put a note if I do that.
> 
> I don't own anything, except for whatever mistakes I make.


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